The Birthday Daffodil Diva

At the weekend I celebrated my birthday and, after closely examining my face in the mirror for any signs of wrinkles, I'm very happy to report that this 35 year old isn't looking too awful.  Hurray for great genes!

I tend to spend my birthday parading about like a Diva (Mariah Carey has nothing on Birthday Chloe!) and eating a silly amount of food - you have been warned.

The day began with a croissant smothered in Cadbury's Chocolate Spread and a very indulgent Cherry Bakewell pastry.  I may have also made poor Simon stand over a hot stove making me a milky coffee in a saucepan - Diva demands!

I was a very lucky lady this year and had a nice pile of gifts from Simon, family and friends to dive into. 

Having developed a keen interest in makeup over the last year I have to say my presents were dominated by beauty products with so many things that I've been wanting to try for ages.  I'm particularly excited about finally trying out the By Terry Ombre Blackstar and the Becca Jaclyn Hill Highlighter in Champagne Pop.



I also got this gorgeous pair of white and rose gold headphones which I plan to wear when I'm hard at work at my blogging desk and am desperately trying to block out the sounds of Simon on his X Box behind me.



Having spent most of his birthday shopping having to chat to the ladies at various beauty counters across Newcastle, Simon was a little worried that the geeky girl he fell for was long gone but he needn't have feared as two of my favourite presents were these cute little Pop Figures he got me for my desk.  I'm obsessed with Felicity Smoak from Arrow and Hayley Atwell who plays Agent Carter is one of my biggest girl crushes.



Simon won himself fiancée of the year by buying me four cupcakes from Pet Lamb Patisserie instead of a birthday cake.  You can probably spot there are two identical cakes, I think he was hopeful that I might let him have the other salted caramel one!

After presents had been opened and I'd taken my obligatory cupcake shot for Instagram (priorities!) we climbed into our rental car and did a 2 hour drive to Farndale in North Yorkshire to do the world famous Daffodil Walk.

I mentioned in my Easter Guide earlier in the week that I love Daffodils so for me the ultimate birthday treat is skipping about in them for hours.  After a little research I discovered Farndale  and so a plan was made.

Daffodils can start to appear at any time in the run up to Spring and planning a time to go and see them in advance is a little tricky.  I spent the weeks running up to my birthday obsessively watching out for local daffodils in bloom, whilst frantically stalking North York Moors National Park on Twitter and putting them on "Daffodil Watch".  Imagine how poor Simon felt getting a daily update on daffodils!

Unfortunately despite my best efforts we had a completely wasted journey.  The 3 mile walk from the car park in Low Mill through the daffodil dales were completely fruitless.  There wasn't a daffodil in sight.  I think we actually have more in our back garden than we saw on the daffodil walk.

Whilst you can't really hold it against Mother Nature I was gutted that the North Yorkshire Moors National Park hadn't been a bit more forthcoming with their information and warned me that our daffodil adventure was a bit pointless.  I tweeted them only a few days earlier and from the complete lack of flowers they would have known they weren't going to appear.

I'm not going to lie, I had major daffodil rage walking back.  I stomped the miles back to the car trying not to cry.  Melodramatic maybe but when you've wasted your birthday afternoon doing a 4 hour round road trip for no reason it's hard not be a little disappointed.  It felt like a waste of a car hire, a waste of time and a wasted birthday afternoon.


Simon was very sweet and was desperate to cheer me up and luckily had a surprise up his sleeve with a table for dinner booked at Horton Grange, a beautiful country house in Northumberland.  It was our first time and we fell for the romance of the building - so much so we almost regretted not looking round it as a potential wedding venue.

I'm afraid there are no photos from our meal, we were enjoying a nice peaceful evening and I think it would have ruined things a little to be worrying about positioning our food into nice light.  You'll just have to use your imaginations and believe us when we say that our Steak was absolutely delicious and the Rhubarb and Custard Cheesecake was just as good as it sounds.

My special day was over as quickly as it had begun and despite the daffodil disappointment I had a lovely day.

Anyone else got any funny birthday stories?